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Conversion to Christianity in Early Medieval Ireland

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Conversion to Christianity in Early Medieval Ireland CONVERSION TO CHRISTIANITY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL IRELAND by Roy Flechner It is a historiographical commonplace to stress Ireland’s situation outside the borders of the Roman Empire and, by implication, outside the ambit of late antique ecclesiastical networks.1 Consequently, Ireland was not in a position to be directly affected by the Empire’s conversion nor does it appear to have received Christianity directly from any of the well-established churches of continental Europe despite legendary accounts that assert the contrary, like the hagiographical topos of St Patrick’s family ties with St Martin of Tours. Nevertheless, Christianity appears to have reached Ireland at a relatively early stage, perhaps as early as the fourth century. By the seventh century Ireland was indisputably regarded as Christian by both Irish and foreign sources. Although the conversion of Ireland can hardly be described as rapid, it is nevertheless remarkable for being the earliest conversion of a European culture, which lay beyond the limes of the former Empire. By comparison, Germanic peoples such as the Frisians and Saxons remained pagan until Christianity was brought to them—sometimes by force—through waves of Frankish political expansion. Not so in Ireland, whose inhabitants are not known to have been subjected to any external political dominion, nor do they appear to have experienced the classic Germanic top-down pattern of conversion, which saw communities converting in tow with their aristocracies.2 Rather, the Christianisation of Ireland was a protracted process stimulated by different forces and personalities. The question of the different processes through which Christianity took root in Ireland from late antiquity and up until the end of the early Viking age in the tenth century, is the subject of the present chapter. NATIVISM AND OTHER GRAND NARRATIVES Much of the historiography on the conversion of Ireland has tended to concentrate on the foreign-born ‘apostles’ Palladius and Patrick, and especially on their biographies rather than their achievements as missionaries.3 Apart from simplified recurrent etiologies derived from their biographical accounts there has never emerged a standard scholarly narrative for the conversion of Ireland, neither in the pre-Viking nor the Viking period. And even though the subject of conversion was broached in articles and book chapters, there is no monograph wholly devoted to it, unlike, for comparison, the history of the conversion to Christianity of Britain, which has four modern monographs.4 1 E.g. Máire and Liam de Paor, Early Christian Ireland, p. 25; Kathleen Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society, 35. For a reassessment of the evidence of religious change stemming from Ireland’s interaction with the Roman world, see Johnston, ‘Religious change and frontier management’. 2 The standard studies of missions in Europe are by Richard Fletcher, Barbarian Conversion, and Ian Wood, Missionary Life. 3 In what follows I incorporate some material from historiographical discussions in my contributions to The Introduction of Christianity into the Early Medieval Insular World, Converting the Isles I, ed. Roy Flechner and Máire Ní Mhaonaigh (Turnhout, 2016), 1–12, 41–60. 4 The monographs are by Mayr-Harting, Coming of Christianity (1972), Yorke, Conversion of Britain (2006), Dunn, Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons (2009), Lambert, Christians and Pagans (2010). Recent examples of general books about Ireland that treat the subject of conversion are Dáibhí Ó Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland; Thomas Charles-Edwards, Early Christian Ireland; Bhreathnach, Ireland in the Medieval World. Historians would often treat conversion indirectly, as an aspect of the debate over church organisation in Ireland (x-ref in this volume). Some of the most influential contributions in this area have been by Kathleen Hughes, Thomas Charles-Edwards, Richard Sharpe, and Colmán Etchingham.5 The central question in the debate has been (to put it crudely) whether the character of the church was primarily monastic or episcopal. The implications for conversion history are significant because they help us in framing the ‘end-result’ of conversion, as gauged from an institutional perspective. Some associated issues that arise include: the economic motivations for and consequences of conversion (discussed separately in this chapter), the persistence of the cult of ancestors that arguably morphed into the cults of certain saintly founders of proprietary churches, and the relative contemporary importance of a hierarchical church vis-à-vis a proliferation of local churches and local practices that exhibited fluid (or at the very least non-uniform) applications of Christianity.6 Two competing grand narratives can be seen to have framed the debate on church organisation: the so-called (mainly by its critics) ‘nativist’ and its rival, the ‘revisionist’ or ‘anti-nativist’. The first would, predictably, stress the uniqueness of Irish church organisation, while the second stresses the external influences, be they European or beyond. This is of course a simplified representation of a debate that has wide implications for framing the story of conversion in Ireland, with one side emphasising the endurance of pre-Christian legacies and the other giving pride of place to Christian influence.7 In retrospect, it is all too easy to deride views held by staunch proponents of either side of the ‘nativist’/‘revisionist’ divide and portray them as polar and irreconcilable, but in reality neither side ever attempted to exclude the other entirely. Rather, the debate—to put it crudely again—has been about the relative weight that either view should be given. For a long time a source of professional as well as personal animosity, in recent years the ‘nativist’ debate has mellowed, and gradually a wider spectrum of more nuanced views has been coming to light.8 Indeed, there are constructive lessons to be learned from the debate and, as is often the case, centralist positions emerged that offer new compelling insights. Dubbed by one commentator ‘post revisionist’, such positions reject the binaries of pagan/Christian or secular/religious in favour of a model of constant dialectical motion between poles.9 The revisionists would also stress the fact that Ireland was never isolated and certainly not immune to Roman influence from an early date. Elsewhere in this volume Thomas Charles-Edwards (x-ref) discusses in detail evidence for early contacts between Rome, Roman Britain, and Ireland. Palladius, who was sent to Ireland by Pope Celestine in 431, is of course the most obvious example for a direct 5 Hughes, The Church in Early Irish Society; Charles-Edwards, ‘The Church and Settlement’; Richard Sharpe, ‘Some Problems Concerning the Organization of the Church’; Idem, ‘Churches and Communities’; Colmán Etchingham, Church Organisation. 6 On the cult of ancestors see, e.g. Ó Riain, ‘Traces of Lug’, 147–151, 155; Bhreathnach, Ireland in the Medieval World, 143. 7 Some of the best treatments of the debate and its history are Kim McCone, Pagan Past, pp. 2–19; Elva Johnston, ‘Early Irish History’. 8 McCone, Pagan Past, p. 2, traces the origin of the debate to James Carney’s coining of the term ‘nativist’ in his 1955 Studies in Irish Literature. Among the ‘nativists’ he challenged were such giants of Celtic studies as Myles Dillon, Daniel Binchy, Kenneth Jackson, Proinsias Mac Cana and Seán Ó Coileáin. 9 Johnston, ‘Early Irish History’, p. 342. 2 involvement by Rome in Ireland’s nascent Christianity. I will return to him. But Roman influence is also manifest in the material record. In fact, for a place that has never been under imperial occupation, Ireland can boast an impressive array of Roman finds (also discussed by Charles-Edwards) attesting trade, raids and perhaps even infrequent military links, though contrary to what some have believed, the evidence for Irishmen serving in the imperial army is scant.10 For present purposes the finds most worthy of mention are such that may attest religious practices. An example are the gold Roman coins and Roman jewellery, dating between the third and fifth centuries AD, found at the prehistoric cult site at Newgrange (Co. Meath). The coins, depicting the Christian convert Emperor Constantine and his Christian son Constantius, are suggestive of familiarity with Christianity (albeit perhaps localised and on a small scale) in Ireland from a relatively early stage in the Empire’s adoption of Christianity as a privileged religion.11 However, despite being evocative of Christianity, the coins and other Roman objects from the site are commonly regarded as reflecting votive offerings either by Romans or locals influenced by the Roman practice of making offerings at shrines and other sacred places.12 We may therefore be witnessing a curious combination of evidence, whereby artifacts from a Christian source, which might even have been brought by Christians, were deposited in what may be interpreted as a ritualistic fashion evocative of pre-Christian Roman custom. It must be stressed, however, that Ireland itself falls outside the traditional grand narrative of the conversion of the Empire and of fourth/fifth-century migrating peoples, because it lacks the signature themes of persecution, imperial acceptance of the new faith, integration of the clergy into the Roman government, establishment of clearly-defined ecclesiastical hierarchies and jurisdictions, doctrinal debates at ecumenical church councils, demarcation of heresy versus orthodoxy, rise
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